Meeting MIM
by agent000
Summary: Jack wakes up somewhere he doesn't remember, and he has to figure out how to escape before the people who brought him there can get the chance to hurt him. It would help a lot if he knew what they did with his staff.
1. Part 1: Chapter 1

**_Hey there, peeps! Long time, no see!_**

 ** _I started writing this story over a year ago (I think?) but didn't want to publish it for whatever reason. And so I just kept writing it. And writing it. And writing it. And then somehow finished it. All without posting a single chapter on this site. *scratches head* That at least means that you guys don't have to worry about this story never getting finished. It already has been. I'm just going to post it chapter by chapter like a normal fanfic, but I can post the chapters pretty quickly considering that they're already written. It just might take me a while to edit them. Editing is a pain. :P_**

 ** _An important point I need to make here: While I prioritized the lore from the movie, I also included a bunch of lore from the books, though I picked and chose which lore I wanted to keep and which lore I wanted to ignore. Figured I should warn you guys in case someone started up with me because, "That's not how the books went!" XD Since the books and the movie are in slightly different worlds, I had to pick and choose in order to portray them as a single world. I did my best! *chuckles*_**

 ** _Anyway, without further ado, I hope you enjoy!_**

 ** _Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians or the Guardians of Childhood books or the characters therein._**

 ** _Other disclaimer: There's a mild amount of blood in this chapter. It's not severe, but if you're squeamish, here's your warning._**

Curiosity was pretty dangerous at times.

If it weren't for Jack's strong sense of curiosity, he wouldn't have that niggling feeling that something was amiss. And he definitely wouldn't have felt it the entire time he had been in his spirit form. He'd tried to drop hints to the others to see if they'd noticed, but thus far it seemed he was the only one who had felt this. It was possible that he was going crazy.

But he still couldn't shake the feeling that he had seen something once upon a time. Well, that was a silly thought. Of course he had seen something. He had eyes. He saw things every day. But there was something he was sure he had seen in the past that he couldn't recall now, and it bothered him. What was it? And was it anywhere near as important as he was making it out to be?

These thoughts were nothing new to Jack. He continued about his days as if he hadn't a care in the world. That was what everyone thought was the case, anyway. Letting on that something bothered him frightened the pants off of him. So he swallowed the feeling and pasted a smile on his face as usual. It couldn't be that bad, could it?

Of course, these events all came before the incident with the polar bears. They had already been getting agitated as it was since the humans' search for oil killed a lot of them. He guessed the next logical thought in their minds was to attack the guy who kept it so cold up there. How that would help their cause though, he had no idea.

Normally a polar bear attack would have been a non-issue for Jack, but he had other things on his mind that day. Jamie was going through puberty now. The Guardians had warned him that he was in for a rough ride. Even one's first believer rarely maintained their belief through puberty. Jack didn't know what to make of this, and he wondered if he could avoid losing Jamie... but this only made him drop his guard around the polar bears.

Before he was aware that the critters had snuck up on him, a large paw slammed into his back, knocking him off his feet. His staff flew out of his hands and skittered away, beyond his reach. The polar bears were lucky for that, but now Jack was at a disadvantage.

Seeing their prey pinned to the frozen ground, the polar bears pounced into action. Everything happened too fast for Jack to be aware of what was happening, but he knew he was in pain. How much pain, he had no idea. His brain didn't have time to process the extent of the damage. All Jack knew was that he had to get out of there. He thrashed and kicked at anything within reach, but the attack continued on.

Things began to get blurry, and Jack couldn't tell where he ended and the polar bears began. He could have sworn that he kicked himself a couple times in the scuffle. Things became more confusing and disorienting until Jack stopped recognizing shapes at all. The sounds of the growls and scuffles faded from his ears, and his eyes drifted shut.

He wasn't sure where he found himself next, but he was no longer in the Arctic. He could tell that much, but he couldn't open his eyes, couldn't move, couldn't do much of anything. It felt like someone had drugged him. Was that a benign attempt to help ease the pain? Or was there a more sinister reason behind drugging him? He knew he was being paranoid, but his heart raced at the thought all the same.

Something started beeping in the distance. Further confirmation that he wasn't in the Arctic. Then some strange thumping sounds followed by something higher pitched and... desperate? If the sounds hadn't been so muffled, he'd have assumed that some panicked people had run into the room where he was. But that couldn't be the case, right? It sounded like they were underwater. Or like he was.

He had to move. He could barely feel his limbs, but he had to move something. He was never going to get out of this situation if he didn't move again. So he focused every bit of his will on trying to move the fingers on his right hand. The only reward he got for his efforts was a slight twitch, but at least that proved he wasn't entirely paralyzed.

The muffled sounds increased. Were they excited or scared that he was coming to? Until Jack knew where he was, he wasn't sure that either explanation would make sense to him. The only solution was to fight past this weird haze and wake up. Focus on moving the other hand... focus... _twitch._

The voices reacted again. Jack knew they were voices now. He didn't know how he knew that, but somehow he knew. They still sounded like they were filtering through water. Someone was watching him wake up, and he couldn't tell whether they meant him harm or good.

Focusing on his right hand again, he managed to make it clench into a fist for a second before it went slack. Still didn't have much control, but it was progress. He tried kicking his leg, and found to his surprise that his leg came in contact with something hard.

This caused his eyes to snap open for a split second before they went shut again. That split second of information was enough to know for sure that he was no longer in the Arctic. He was also not anywhere he knew. And it looked like he was standing up.

But that didn't make any sense at all. He couldn't move. Why would he be standing up? Jack's leg twitched again, and he realized that the air moving around his leg was awfully thick. Being Jack Frost, he knew how the air felt in any given condition, and this air felt strange. It didn't feel like air. But if it wasn't air, how was he managing to breathe?

He opened his eyes again for a longer moment, causing some of those present to panic. Jack couldn't see well yet, but he had finally seen the people before him. And he was right. He was upright, but he was floating. What was he floating in?

Regardless of his drug-induced haze, he forced his eyes open again to take another look. He touched the hard surface once again, and his eyes widened in realization. His foot had come into contact with a pane of glass.

Was he in some kind of display case? No, that didn't make sense. Who would keep him like that? He had been in a battle with polar bears and no doubt looked an awful sight. That thought drove the curiosity even higher, and he looked down at his own body. An action which he soon regretted.

What should have been uninterrupted flesh was all bloodied and scratched up. His stomach lurched, and he closed his eyes to rid himself of the sight, but the vision only persisted in his head. How was he still alive after that? Why did he not feel much pain? Maybe it had something to do with whatever they'd drugged him with. But he hoped whoever had captured him didn't plan on keeping him here forever.

He popped his eyes open again, clenched his fist, and pounded on the glass in front of him. The people startled at his response. What did they expect from someone they'd trapped in a glass tube?

Jack hadn't tried to use his voice yet, but he was going to try. "Hey! What's going on?" His voice came out scratchy and almost inaudible, but that didn't matter. The people scattered like cockroaches after you flick on the light. Jack sighed, letting his hand fall beside him. Where was he? This wasn't fair.

That was when he started to whimper. Whatever all this was, it was terrifying, and he was pretty sure it couldn't get any worse.

 ** _So, there was that. I'll upload the next chapter once I get through the editing of it. In the meantime, let me know what you think. I can always edit future chapters to explain things I didn't explain well, so definitely ask me questions or give me suggestions. Also telling me if you liked it and what you liked really helps boost my confidence, since I'm a bit of an anxious cinnamon bun. ;)_**

 ** _Take care, and see you next time!_**


	2. Chapter 2

**_Wow, I'm impressed at how much attention this story has gotten already! I know it's not a huge amount by fanfiction standards, but with this fandom being so sluggish at the moment, getting two reviews, a fave, and two follows within the first twenty-four hours is an honor as far as I'm concerned. So thank you, guys! :)_**

 ** _Also, sorry if anyone noticed any typos in the last chapter yesterday. I forgot that I needed to proofread after I edited. You can wind up with some rather strange phrases otherwise. Yesterday had an interesting one of, "He didn't know how he knew that, but he could knew." Hmmm… okay. That little artifact is now taken care of, and I'll double check from now on that my editing hasn't left these fun little surprises. ;) Feel free to point them out if you do happen to see them though._**

 ** _Anyway, sorry for babbling. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy the chapter!_**

 ** _Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians or the Guardians of Childhood books or the characters therein._**

 ** _Other disclaimer: The blood referenced in the last chapter continues in this one, and I think the next one too. Pretty sure it stops being mentioned after that. But if you're still squeamish, I figured I should warn you._**

He knew not to tempt Fate since Fate has a nasty habit of pranking anyone dares to tempt it. But sometimes it was hard to avoid doing so. Jack opened his eyes wide and looked around. What he saw made his stomach lurch even worse than when he had laid eyes on his mangled body.

He saw himself. Or rather, he saw a body that looked exactly like his. Whether it was alive, he couldn't tell, but it was limp enough to be dead. And it wore the same clothes that he did. He clapped a hand over his mouth. What on earth was going on?

Jack didn't know much at that moment, but he knew he had to get out of there. He began feeling around his glass enclosure to find any possible weaknesses. Could he figure out how to escape before those people came back? Even he knew that there was no way he would be able to outrun them in his condition.

But the longer he looked, the deeper the rabbit hole went. His hand shot to the top of his enclosure. The cylinder was tightly capped, so he didn't discover a weakness up there. But he did discover a tiny pocket of air. That creeped him out even more than the thought of them keeping him in a display case. The fact that there was air up there meant that he was not breathing in air, and if not air, what was it? Was this some kind of breathable liquid? Did such a thing exist?

Some bubbles escaping from the cylinder next to him caught his attention, and he turned to look. What he saw made his eyes widen as far as they could go. It was another duplicate of himself, once again wearing the same clothes. And beside that duplicate was yet another one, and beside that one, yet another.

Jack slammed his eyes shut and turned away from the view, not wanting to see how many Jacks there were in the room. He wished he hadn't even seen the first. Didn't they say when you see your doppelgänger, you can expect to die soon? What that what was happening? Was he going to die?

The thumping sounds came into the room again. Footsteps. Those must be how footsteps sounded to him while encased in liquid. Despite his desperate wish to see nothing more of this strange place, he opened his eyes. The need to know what was going on was much stronger than the need to hide.

Jack slapped the side of his cylinder a couple times to get someone's attention. "Hey! What's going on? What are you doing to me?"

A single figure approached Jack's enclosure. The closer the person got, the clearer Jack could make out his face. The man watched Jack for a moment. He scribbled on a rectangular object which Jack guessed to be a high tech clipboard. Then he turned and mumbled some things to his fellow workers. Jack still couldn't hear a word of what was being said.

The man then picked up a small handheld device, plugged the cord into the cylinder, and then said, "Can you hear me now?"

Jack gasped. He had not been expecting that. "Yes!" He shook his head to help him recover from the shock. "Yes, I can hear you. What's going on?"

"You don't need to worry your pretty little head about that," said the man. "You'll be back to your normal life soon enough and won't remember a thing about being here."

That didn't sit right with Jack. Maybe they were trying to help him, and maybe they weren't. But he had never asked them to force him to forget he was even there. He shook his head. "No! Tell me why I'm here!"

The man sighed. "Jack, why are you always so difficult every time you come here?"

Jack raised an eyebrow and regarded the man. He had been here before? And yet he couldn't remember it? He knew he'd had a funny feeling about something for a long time, but he never expected it to be this. Was he getting kidnapped and then made to forget about it over and over again?

"What are you talking about?" Jack's voice cracked with emotion. Why couldn't this guy help him understand instead of confusing him more? "Why am I here?"

The man sighed and looked around at the others. It was like he had to judge whether it was okay for him to violate some sort of taboo or something. He turned back to face Jack. "Look, Jack, we're not here to harm you, okay? You only come here whenever you hurt yourself and we have to fix it."

Jack's eyebrows shot up. So these guys were some kind of healers or something? But then why were they being so secretive? Judging by the people's reactions, the man wasn't supposed to have even said that much.

Jack gestured to the cylinder next to him. "But what's with _this?_ Why do you have a bunch of... a bunch of other... other _mes?_ "

The man groaned and turned away to face his colleagues. It seemed Jack wasn't supposed to have noticed that, and the guy wasn't sure what to do about it. The man held the microphone away from his face. It seemed he had forgotten to turn it off, because Jack heard a very faint, "We're going to have to do it now. We can't afford to wait any longer."

"What?" Jack said, and he pounded on his enclosure, but it was very well built and it only hurt his hands. "What are you going to do? Tell me!"

The man turned around again only for a moment and said, "Don't worry, Jack. You won't remember any of this."

"But what is _this?"_ Jack screamed.

They didn't answer his question. Someone in the room flipped a switch, flooding Jack's container with electric current. Jack's body tingled. It zapped at his fingers. He wasn't too concerned until the electricity jumped into his body and wreaked havoc on his entire being.

He was being torn apart. He could feel it. Some part of him was being disconnected from some other part of him. The electricity arced across each of his cells, cackling in its wake as it basked in his destruction. Jack felt as though he had a million fire ants beneath the surface of his skin. Parading around. Trying to bite their way through him until they reformed him into the perfect new home for them.

Despite how much Jack wanted to demand answers right then, he couldn't. The only thing his body and mind knew how to do at that time was scream, and scream he did. He screamed until his own voice echoed in his ears, and he drifted off into silence once again.

 ** _See, Jack? Don't ever tempt Fate by saying things can't get worse. Fate doesn't like being told what to do and will always be a brat. :P_**

 ** _Anyway, thanks for reading, guys! Feel free to tell me your thoughts or questions or whatever. They make me happy to see. I'm still working on editing chapters to post, which is a super tedious process, but I should have the next one ready to go tomorrow. :)_**

 ** _Take care, and hope to see you around next time!_**


	3. Chapter 3

_**Wow, you guys really seem to like this story thus far! I got three reviews yesterday, which is astounding! Thank you so much!**_

 _ **This was a little gem of an anonymous review that I received yesterday that I thought I'd share:**_

 ** _"_** _ **What? Was? That? Cruelty, that's what that was. I have sooo many questions... but all in due time, I suppose.**_

 _ **-Sweets-n-Treats**_

 _ ***chuckles* Sorry for being cruel? I initially wrote this story as three long oneshots, but am now breaking it up into smaller chapters for easier reading. And of course, it makes the suspense even higher, haha. I'm glad you like it. Though I admit that I'm rather curious what your questions are. XD**_

 _ **Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy the chapter!**_

 _ **Disclaimer: Still don't own Rise of the Guardians or the Guardians of Childhood books.**_

The next thing he was aware of was a bout of confusion. Hadn't he been in the Arctic? Had he finished what he'd been doing there? What had he been trying to do there anyway? Something about a storm. But he always delivered storms, so why did his stomach lurch when he thought about his most recent errand? Something about polar bears.

Polar bears. He shivered, but he didn't know why. Polar bears weren't normally a threat. Though he supposed anything could be a threat if it got angry enough. Or cold enough. Various creatures tended to get angry if they got cold. Jack was sure that the polar bears had a limit too. What would they do if they reached that limit?

They would knock him down and maul him to death, that's what. Jack shivered at the thought. Was that a memory? It was an overreaction if it hadn't been a memory. But if that had happened, then how was he still alive? Where was he?

Jack focused all his attention on his hands, one at a time as each twitched to show he could still feel them. So far, so good. He didn't seem to be in pain either, which was a plus. He then directed his attention to his legs and commanded them to work. Each leg jerked. Okay, he was still doing fine. Then Jack focused his attention on his eyes as he willed them to open. He needed to see where he was. He needed to know how he had survived that attack.

A few cautious blinks and then he forced his eyes open and tried to focus on his surroundings. Everything was hazy and the muscles in his eyes seemed lethargic. It was almost like he had never used his eyes to see before. But that was silly. He was in a polar bear-induced haze, and he would recover from it shortly.

His eyes began to focus, and some of the most confusing sights came into being. He was floating in some kind of weird cylinder. Outside of it, several people pointed at him and began freaking out about something.

He reached out his hand and felt it grace something hard and transparent in front of him. That was strange. Was that there a minute ago? "H-Hey," he said, but he found that his voice seemed a bit hoarse. Or it was being lethargic in the same way his eyes were. In that case, all he had to do was warm up his voice a little by continuing to attempt speech.

"Hey... what am I... what am I doing here?"

If the people outside were able to hear him, they didn't show it. Whatever had spooked them only seemed to continue to do so. Then a man ran into the room, grabbed a small device, and plugged it into the cylinder Jack was in.

"Jack, can you hear me?" said the man.

Jack nodded, then croaked out, "Yes." And then, "what's going on?"

The guy sighed and ran his fingers through his hair as though he'd been through an awful lot that day already. "Look," he said, "this isn't what it looks like, okay? This is all a-a dream. Yes, a dream. So now if you'll go back to sleep, you'll wake up back home and everything will be normal."

That seemed reasonable, so Jack nodded and began to close his eyes. Then he snapped them open again when something pinged in his brain. Something about this situation didn't sit right. Since when do dreams try to convince you that they're dreams? Even his lucid dreams hadn't tried to convince him that he was dreaming. And they definitely didn't suggest he should go back to sleep to solve the "problem" of dreaming.

"What's going on?" Jack's hands began to curl into fists. Funny, he remembered having this kind of interaction before, but when?

"Nothing!" said the man as he dismissed Jack's question with a wave of his hand. "There is nothing to worry about. Go back to sleep and everything will be fine."

"You don't solve a dream by going to sleep," said Jack, "you solve a dream by waking up."

The man bit his lip, cluing in Jack that he was on the right track. There was something suspicious about all this. It couldn't be a dream. Something told him it wasn't, even though he wanted more than anything to believe it was.

A flash entered Jack's memory. Something about the polar bears. They had mangled him, hadn't they? Jack glanced down at his body and saw to his shock that his body hadn't a scratch on it. He didn't even bear scars to show that the fight had happened at all. How was this possible?

Something shifted out of the corner of Jack's eye, and he turned to see what had caught his attention. What he saw made him want to vomit, had he had any food in him that would have been able to come up. There was another cylinder close to his. And it contained a body that would have been identical to his, except for one key difference. It looked as though it had been mauled by polar bears.

Alarm bells went off in Jack's head. He grasped the sides of his head with both hands to try to keep himself from exploding. That other body had been his own. It had to have been. So why was he now in this one? This didn't make sense. It was so _wrong._

Jack felt a scream rising in his throat. Was it even his throat? Could he rightfully call it that? Regardless, it sure wanted to scream right then. If he tried to stifle the scream, it would find another way out. He clamped his eyes shut so he at least could cut off the horrifying things he didn't want to see, and he screamed.

How long he screamed, he couldn't say. Time didn't exist anymore. Nothing existed anymore. Even he didn't exist anymore. His body was just floating dead in that strange cylinder thing... what was it, a tank? The image of multiple bodies like his own in identical tanks around the room popped into his head. Another memory he didn't want, and he only screamed the louder.

One thing he did notice was the cracking. It was subtle at first. But after being the spirit of winter for so long, he knew how to tell cracking sounds apart. He could tell the pressure was going to make the glass give way any moment. This may not have been ice, but the sound was still quite clear. He had gotten so upset that he had frozen the condensation in the air outside the tank. The glass was now from brittle from the cold. It seemed he couldn't freeze whatever liquid the tank contained, but that didn't matter much. He was about to get out of this nightmare anyway.

The cracking reached its critical point, and the glass shattered. It spilled all the liquid onto the strange people and carried Jack with it. He landed on the floor in an undignified heap, dripping like a wet poodle. Despite his urge to jump up and run, his lungs had other ideas. He coughed and gasped as he expelled all the strange liquid and took in air for the first time. It might have been the first time this body had ever taken a breath of air. That thought sent shivers down Jack's spine. He had to get out of here.

 _ **Da da dum! So there's that chapter. I hope you guys liked it. Feel free to share your thoughts with me. It definitely helps me know whether you like this sort of story or not so that I can know what to write for you guys in the future. I seriously was scared to post this one for some reason, so I didn't post the first arc for over a year. Or heck, I didn't start posting the first arc until I'd written the third arc. :P Go figure. Sometimes I get terrified of sharing weird ideas and I have no idea why.**_

 _ **Anyway, thanks for reading, take care, and I hope to see you next time!**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Hey, everybody! I'm back with the next chapter. I'm very curious to see what you guys will think of this one. *chuckles***_

 _ **Queenlaur had an interesting question that I thought I might as well mention here rather than responding to them directly since some of my other readers might be wondering this as well. They asked if Jack had any clothes on. While I had technically addressed this in a previous chapter, it was such a blink-and-you-miss it comment that I'm not surprised it got missed, and I really should have addressed it better, so here you go. Yes, Jack is wearing clothes. Every single body is dressed the exact same way in the exact same clothes, which further creeps out Jack.**_

 _ **Bonus question that I'll address from Sweets-n-Treats because why not? I'm never going to address it directly in the fanfic, so to satisfy your curiosity: the breathable liquid in the containers is a real thing, but I figured that Jack wouldn't have power over it since his power is over the freezing of water. Or I randomly decided that he had no power over it, because apples, haha. The liquid itself is called hydroflourocarbon, though it seems to have some other names associated with it that are a little outside my range of expertise since I'm not a scientist. But yes, people can honestly breathe the liquid when submerged in it. And switching between the liquid and air isn't the most pleasant from what I've heard, since you have to cough one out in order to breathe the other one in. But they have been doing research with using this liquid in artificial wombs since humans can breathe it in. True story. Google it if you're curious. It's a great plot device. :)**_

 _ **Anyway, thank you all for being awesome once again. You guys are more awesome than you know, haha. On with the show!**_

Jack recovered from the shock before the others did, and he jumped to his feet and ran toward the nearest door. He had no idea where he was running. This body of his wasn't in the mood to cooperate with his attempt at escape as he wobbled and ran into walls. Undaunted, he shook the dizziness out of his head, then kept running.

In time he figured out how this new body worked, and he ran faster. The better he got at running, the more difficult it would be for those strange people to capture him again. This was a good thing.

The hallway came to an abrupt end. He paused long enough to survey his options, then took off running toward the corridor to the left. He could still hear panicked footsteps behind him, so he had no time to lose. He had to shake them off his tail somehow.

Jack darted down another corridor and soon found himself at a crossroads area. He could travel in at least seven or eight different directions from here. Which way should he pick? He had been taking the first turns he saw, but he knew that he was going to eventually loop back to where he'd started. Someone was bound to be waiting for him there. He couldn't risk being careless from this point on, but he had to make up his mind soon.

A breezy sound caught his ear, and he looked up to see a ventilation shaft above his head. The grate was ajar. He was pretty sure he could slip in there if he could figure out how to get up there. If only he knew where his staff was, that problem would have been easy to solve.

But no matter. He could improvise. Jack positioned some random objects, then backed up. He ran up to one of the objects, used that one to take a flying leap at the other, and then jumped from that one to the grate. It was a lot harder feat than it should have been since he wasn't used to this body, but he still pulled it off. His doppelgänger bodies were designed well if they could pull impressive feats like that.

He pulled the grate shut to not leave evidence of where he'd gone. Then he crawled away from sight of any prying eyes as footsteps came running into the room. The confusion that floated up into the ventilation shaft was unmistakable.

"Where do you think he would have gone?" said one person.

"He could have gone anywhere from here," said another guy. He then seemed to realize the predicament they were in and raised the pitch of his voice. "Oh gosh, what are we gonna do?"

A third approached the group. "Now, nobody panic. He can't have gotten far. You know very well that he can't get out of here without help."

"I know," said the panicky second voice, "but now he _knows_ things. Shouldn't we have wiped his memory as soon as we saw this happen?"

"You can't give someone a memory wipe so soon after a transfer," said the third. "We're going to have to catch him again and wait."

Jack regarded the people below with narrowed eyes. They wanted to capture him again and hold him prisoner so they could wipe his memory? He wouldn't have it. He was going to get away, no matter what it took.

Jack held his breath until he heard their footsteps recede. That had been close. Now he finally had the time to think.

Those people had said that he couldn't get away without help. He wasn't sure why, but that probably meant they were somewhere that was difficult to get away from. Perhaps they were in the middle of a desert. Maybe the help he needed was for someone to return his staff to him. He would have no problem escaping then. But where might they keep his staff?

Well, whatever the case, Jack didn't feel safe leaving the ventilation system for the time being. He decided to explore this strange place from within it. So he turned and crawled through the narrow ventilation tunnel in a new direction. He hoped being up here would provide some answers.

After a few minutes of crawling, he came upon a grate that overlooked what seemed to be a lunchroom. Several people sat around a table, eating and talking about random stuff. He didn't recognize any of the faces. He was about to move on when someone at the table said, "so have you heard that Jack Frost got loose?"

Someone else gasped and almost dropped their lunch. "He got away? But couldn't that ruin us?"

"I said got loose, not got away," said the first person. "He can't ruin anything so long as he's stuck on base, and I don't see how he could get away from here."

"But what if he finds out how to contact the Guardians and tells them everything he knows?" said the second person. Jack nodded in appreciation of this second person's worries. They were giving him some great ideas. Now if he could figure out how to contact the Guardians from here, wherever here was.

"You give him too much credit," said the first person. "He'll never figure it out. We're safe."

A third person piped up then. "I don't see why everyone's tiptoeing on eggshells around that guy. If he's causing so much trouble, shoot him. That's what I say."

Jack's hand flew to his mouth to stifle a cry of alarm. They wanted to kill him for what he knew? But what did he know? All he was aware of was that they had switched out his real body for this strange fake one. He began to feel terror over this body he now had and whatever secrets it might contain. For all he knew, they could have turned him into some sort of trap for the Guardians. Maybe they had made him into something that recorded vital information. Or maybe they connected to him by remote access and he would explode on command. A living bomb seemed as believable as anything else, right? Who knew what these people were capable of? He needed to find a way to get back into his own body, mangled or not.

Jack resumed his quest crawling down the tunnel. The first person reprimanded the third person for thinking such thoughts. The sentiment did very little to make Jack feel better. Someone in this strange place wanted Jack dead, and he wasn't going to ignore such a threat.

The tunnel tapered so it was too narrow, and he had to to find himself another loose grate to let himself out. It didn't take him long, which was surprising. One would think they would check these grates more often. He guessed these people had more important things to do.

Jack glanced around the corridor before he leaped out of the ventilation shaft. He then walked in the direction he had been exploring in the ventilation.

He came to a wall. Undaunted, he turned left and continued to follow the hallway wherever it led. There was a window up ahead, and Jack's heart rate quickened at the sight. If that window led to the outside, he could use it to gain a clue on where he was, if not to break out of this place altogether.

Jack ran to the window, then stopped and turned to look out of it. His heart stopped the instant the view outside met his eyes, and his jaw dropped. Outside was an expanse of darkness and some of the clearest stars he'd seen, accompanied by... planet Earth? Was he seeing things?

Jack became too dizzy to continue standing. He couldn't process all this new information, so he collapsed into a fitful heap on the floor. He wrapped his arms around his legs and held himself in a protective little bundle. He wasn't on the Earth? Then did that mean he was on the moon? How did he get here? What did these strange people want with him?

 _ **...And now you finally have a clue as to what's going on. I'm very curious as to what you guys think is happening from here on out. Feel free to guess at me. I don't care how outlandish the guess is. It makes me a better writer to know what ideas and images I'm conjuring up in my readers' minds. That's how I've learned as much as I have over the years, since I pretty much taught myself to write through fanfiction. It's an awesome writing school, really, and it's free. XD**_

 _ **Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope to see you around next time! (Feel free to kick my butt about editing. I need to get my butt kicked before I run out of backup chapters that I've already edited or you guys are going to have a gap of time with no chapters, which would suck. I have two more edited chapters after this one, so if I don't get around to editing the next arc within two days... Meh. Well, you get it, haha.) In any case, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Take care!**_


	5. Chapter 5

_**Hey, peeps! I ish back with the next installment of this fanfic. This chapter is a little longer than the previous ones have been, which I hope you enjoy. It just made the most sense to cut this chapter at the point I did, which I'm sure you'll understand when you get there. It's a doozy. ;)**_

 _ **Anyway, I guess I'll get on with the chapter without babbling too much for once since I can't think of much to babble about. (I'm apologizing for not babbling? Okay, I'm even weirder than I thought I was. Never mind me.) Enjoy!**_

 _ **Disclaimer: Still don't own Rise of the Guardians or the Guardians of Childhood books. And I so wish I still had my witty disclaimer skills from my FMA days, but nobody in this fandom seems to understand the joke of making fun of disclaimers anyway. :P**_

One thing was clear now: those people were right about him not being able to get away without help. Even with his staff, he couldn't fly back to Earth from the moon. It was too far. And the gravity was bound to work against him out in the expanse of space. And that was supposing he could go without breathing for that long. Even with his powers, he doubted he could do that.

Well, panic or no panic, he knew he couldn't sit there. Those strange people were still scouring the place, looking for him. It was only a matter of time before they came this way. Jack reached out a hand and grasped the wall, then used it to pull himself back up. He still couldn't stand well, but he was going to have to make the best of it. There was no chance that he was going to stick around and wait for the people who wanted him dead to find him.

The Earth through the window loomed at him, and he held back a gulp. How he was going to get back there was a mystery, but he was going to have to try and figure it out. The people who worked here had a way of traveling to and from the earth. He could figure it out too if he could avoid getting caught. He also needed to find his staff. It would be hard to continue being free without it, even if he made it to the earth somehow.

Jack was weak in the knees, but he continued to creep along as fast as his body would allow, using the wall as his support. Now where should he be trying to get himself to? Could he send out a call for help to someone?

Those people in the lunchroom had mentioned that he might try and contact the Guardians. Did that mean it was possible? They might be able to find some way to save him if they only knew where he was.

A little strength returned to his legs, and he continued walking down the hallway. He turned whenever he felt it would be a good time to make a turn and he crept past any open doors. One never knew if anyone would be in one of those rooms.

As luck would have it, Jack spotted a sign off in the distance. It had an arrow on it, which would give directions to somewhere, though he wasn't yet sure where it was directing to. He would have to get closer to read the lettering. But if everything continued to go as it had been, he was sure he could get close enough within a couple minutes.

This part of the operation was harder to progress through since there were people in some of these rooms. He always had to make sure no one was looking before sneaking past. Jack was pretty sure he'd heard his name mentioned a couple times. He didn't bother to stay and listen, as sticking around in an area like this was almost certain to get him caught.

He got close enough to where he'd be able to read the sign if he squinted. After glancing both ways and ducking behind a trash receptacle, he turned and looked at the sign.

"Something Industries Control Room," he mouthed under his breath. The first word was in a different font from the rest and would need him to get closer to read it. But it seemed like the least important word of the bunch. The important thing was that he now knew which direction to go if he wanted to get at the bottom of this whole affair. This was progress.

As soon as he was sure no one was watching, he darted the rest of the way to the sign. Then he turned to follow the arrow down the next hall. Before he passed the sign, he caught the word he'd missed before: MIM. This place was MIM Industries. Why did that raise a red flag in him?

Aside from having to dodge if anyone who came out of their office, finding his way around was getting easier. There were a lot more signs in this part of... wherever this place was. He was getting to the heart of things, but that also meant that there were many more people to watch out for.

At last he saw a sign that said "Control Room". He had to restrain himself from squealing with delight, since would likely get him caught. After once again checking that no one was watching, he darted over to the door, pried it open a crack, and peered in.

No one seemed to be home. That was strange, but he wasn't about to complain about his good fortune. He slithered into the room before anyone could stumble upon him. Then he closed the door as quietly as he knew how.

Now to figure out how these controls worked. Jack scanned the room to see if there was anything about contacting the Guardians. Or at least contacting Earth. He wasn't too picky at present, but it didn't seem that things were marked well in this room.

He sighed and made his way over to what he assumed was the control panel. It was a large machine full of levers and switches that covered about two walls. A third wall contained several screens, each tuned to display a different scene. Some screens displayed locations within the building itself. Jack couldn't help but wonder how they hadn't caught him yet if they had surveillance technology like this. Were they stupid enough to not have anyone manning the cameras while they chased him?

No matter. He knew his window of time to do something was limited, so he turned his attention back to the control panel. The sheer number of levers and switches was overwhelming. He swallowed his overwhelm for the time being and picked a switch at random. The large screen on the other wall changed to display a view of the earth.

This was good, but Jack didn't know how to get any further than this. Placing his hand on his chin, he walked up to the screen and inspected it. If he could get it to zoom in, he could find his friends, but he didn't know which button to push to do that. He sighed and traced the outline of the earth with his finger, wondering if he would ever get back there.

To his surprise, the image of the earth moved with his finger. This screen was touch sensitive? He wiggled his finger, and the earth shook on the screen in answer to his question. This was an interesting way to control the information on the screen. Jack placed both his hands on the screen and drew them apart from each other. As he did so, the image of the earth grew larger on the screen. Success! Now to zoom in enough to find out where his friends were.

It took him a few tries since the physics of the touch screen were not something Jack was used to. But he managed to zoom in enough to see the workshop at the north pole. He couldn't figure out how to see whether the Guardians were in there, and that was a problem.

Jack sighed. "I wish I could see through the walls so I could see if they're there."

The screen blipped in response. The walls of the workshop faded until they were transparent. Jack looked on in shock. So this thing was voice activated too?

After searching through the image for a minute, he found some movement by the fireplace. He zoomed in to get a better look. Sure enough, there were the Guardians, and they looked troubled. Had they had noticed he was gone? That would trouble them, right?

Regardless of what they were reacting to, he now had to figure out how to get a message through. Jack looked up at the big screen and said, "Um, can you tell me how to talk to them?" The screen didn't reply. The darn screen. What good was making smart technology if it was only smart some of the time?

Jack turned and looked back at the control panel. There had to be some clue about what he could do to get their attention. If only he knew how this place worked, this wouldn't be so difficult.

His eyes fell on a label that said "moonbeam". If that sent a beam of light to the place where the screen was focused, it would be hard for the Guardians not to notice. He pulled the lever and turned back to watch the screen.

Sure enough, the Guardians noticed. They sprang into action and faced Jack's camera view while speaking and gesturing. Jack puzzled over this for a moment before he smacked his forehead. Duh, they were trying to speak to him, but he didn't have any way of knowing what they were saying.

He cleared his voice. "Is there some way to make their words audible?"

"Audio on," said the screen, and the Guardians' words floated up to him.

"...know anything about Jack?" said Tooth while wringing her hands. "He didn't show up for our meeting."

"I still say he's off goofing around somewhere," said Bunny, but Jack could tell the guy sounded kind of worried.

North then stepped forward into full view and said, "Manny, tell us what you know."

That comment made Jack trip over his own heels as he staggered backward. North thought he was Manny? What a laugh. How could he possibly mistake him for... well, he had sent out a moonbeam to get their attention. He guessed it did look a lot like the Man in the Moon was trying to contact them.

Something then pinged in Jack's head. Man in Moon. MIM. His eyes went wide as the implications of that set in, and he brought up his hands to his mouth to stifle a gasp. Was he with the Man in the Moon? Was this place where the guy worked?

He began to hyperventilate. He pressed his hands over his temples to attempt to keep his head from exploding from the pressure. No, that couldn't be. No no no... Wasn't the Man in the Moon a good guy? Granted, Jack had never been sure of that, but he had called Jack to become a Guardian, hadn't he? Why would the Man in the Moon have kidnapped him and brought him here?

He shook his head and took a few deep breaths to try and calm himself down. Whatever was going on, he still needed to tell the Guardians where he was somehow. He glanced around, but couldn't locate a microphone or anything similar. Why did all these controls have to be so complicated?

What he did spot was a lever that looked like a miniature version of the crystal he knew so well back at the workshop. If he pulled that lever, that crystal would pop up in the room the Guardians were in. He might be able to figure out how to talk through it. A pang of guilt swept through him since they would think a new Guardian was being selected. But what other choice did he have?

He pulled the lever before he could talk himself out of it. The Guardians had varied reactions of shock and anxiety as the crystal popped up. North then turned to look up again and said, "Manny, why we need new Guardian? Where is Jack?"

Jack sighed. He wished he knew how to answer them on this matter, but he had no idea how. He wasn't even sure how to send messages, but he was starting to guess how this technology worked.

"Give me something to draw on," Jack said to the screen. The screen then trilled as a bluish window appeared over the scene of the Guardians. He took a deep breath and let it out. He hoped this worked.

Jack traced his finger over the bluish space in the window as he drew out the form of a snowflake. Then he waited a moment as the snowflake faded from the screen and reappeared in front of the Guardians. Yes! It was working.

Jack then drew a simple crescent moon and let that image travel to the Guardians as well. After a moment of puzzling over the symbols, Tooth looked up and said, "Jack and the moon? I don't understand."

He sighed and rubbed his forehead. This was harder than he thought. There had to be some way to communicate better than this. Could he draw exact words? He might as well try.

Jack began to write the words, "Jack is on the moon." But the first words began to fade before he finished writing the sentence. The Guardians seemed to be more confused as they asked each other what the garbled symbols meant.

Okay, so writing didn't send well through this method. No wonder the Man in the Moon didn't use that trick. Jack thought a moment more, then snapped his fingers. He knew what he could do.

He sketched out another snowflake design. Before it could fade, he drew a crescent moon shape right underneath it. The snowflake now rested on the moon. If they didn't understand that, then he didn't know what to do.

After a moment, the Guardians looked up again in bewilderment, but it wasn't the same look they had shown before. It seemed to be something more akin to surprise.

"Frostbite's with you?" said Bunny.

"Yes!" said Jack, only to remember that Bunny would not be able to hear that response. He would have to draw it out, but how did one draw out a yes?

He snapped his fingers again as an idea came to him, and he scratched out a check mark and sent it to the Guardians. A look of awe combined with shock came over their faces, and it took them a while to come up with anything more to say.

Finally, Tooth looked up toward him again and said, "Well, can you... can you at least tell us if Jack's okay?"

His hands were poised over the screen to send a response message, but he couldn't make his fingers budge. He wasn't sure if he was okay. How does one respond to a question like that without making one's friends worry more? He supposed he could draw a question mark as an accurate response, but that was bound to cause a fit of anxiety.

A chuckle from elsewhere in the room caught Jack's attention. He forgot all about his trouble with translating his thoughts into symbols. He jerked his head toward the sound as he saw a little man come into view.

"Having fun, Jack?"

Jack was not about to give this person the opportunity to capture him, and he spun around and ran for the door. The other person ran for the control panel and pushed a button, and the door clicked shut. Jack grabbed the door handle and tried to wrench the door open, but the door remained fast. The man had locked it.

Jack spun around, his back pressed up against the door as he watched the strange man approach him. "What do you want with me?" he said.

The man chuckled again and shook his head. "You're always so funny whenever you come here, Jack." That didn't do anything to assuage Jack's fears. It only reaffirmed that he had been in this strange place times before that he couldn't remember. And for what purpose?

"You seem to think we mean you harm, Jack. We've only ever tried to help you."

"That's not what everyone here thinks," said Jack. "I overheard one person saying that I should be shot."

The man sighed, but continued approaching Jack. "Some of my team has forgotten why we do this. I'll have a talk with them."

Even with the assurance that the members of the team would be spoken to, Jack didn't feel reassured. There was still a lot that he wasn't being told, and he didn't like it. He licked his lips and looked down at the floor. "Why _do_ you do this?"

Another chuckle. "Jack, do you not know who I am?" Jack had to admit that he didn't. The guy laughed harder as though he thought Jack was the cutest thing in existence. He then stretched his arms out wide as he said, "I'm the Man in the Moon."

 _ **Dun dun dunnnnnn...! Finally some answers... or one, anyway. Jack's going to have a lot of questions over this, haha.**_

 _ **Again, feel free to let me know what you think. I love hearing from you guys, enough that I try to respond to all my signed reviews, which is a big deal for me to prioritize something like that since I'm kind of spacey. (If you've left a signed review and I haven't responded, I apologize. Like I said, I'm spacey. It's honestly a miracle that I'm hitting most of them.)**_

 _ **Thanks again for reading. I love how amused you guys are with this story thus far. :) See you all again next time!**_


	6. Chapter 6

_**Hey, guys! Sorry it took me so long to get around to posting this chapter today. I worked too hard yesterday and got myself all exhausted and didn't wake up until about 3PM. :P Yep. So, you have this chapter arriving fairly late in the day. Sorries! *laughs***_

 _ **But yeah, this is the final chapter in this arc. I'll post the first chapter of the next arc as soon as I finish editing it, which I'm hoping is either tomorrow or Monday. We'll see. Wish me luck!**_

 _ **Anyway, without further ado, here's your chapter. I hope you enjoy!**_

 _ **Disclaimer: Still don't own ROTG or GOC. Yep.**_

Jack's eyes went wide as he regarded the figure in front of him. This was the man who pulled the strings for the Guardians? The man who had turned him into his current form? He narrowed his eyes then as he thought. This was also the man who had abandoned him for three hundred years.

It seemed his expression was not the most welcoming one, as the Man in the Moon raised an eyebrow at Jack. "What's the matter, Jack?"

"What's going _on?_ " said Jack. "Why am I here? Why is everyone chasing me around, trying to erase my memories? Why did you guys pull me out of my body?" His voice raised about an octave as his level of emotion boiled to the surface. His voice began to crack. "That's so wrong! Put me back in my proper body!"

An almost amused smirk answered him on the Man in the Moon's face. "But you almost died in that body. It's in pretty bad shape."

"I don't care!" Jack screamed. "You can't tear people out of their bodies and expect it to be okay. Even if that body is injured, it's _my_ body! I want _my_ body back!"

The Man in the Moon sighed and looked at Jack for a minute in sorrowful silence. Didn't this guy understand what Jack was going through? Who would want to be torn out of one's own body and forced into a fake one? It wasn't natural.

After a moment, the Man in the Moon turned and gestured for Jack to follow him. "I have something I want to show you."

Jack had no alternative but to obey since he couldn't open the door. The Man in the Moon led him to a little cylindrical room. It opened when they approached and then closed when they stepped inside. Was this some sort of elevator?

"The Preservation Room," said the Man in the Moon. A bright flash occurred, and then he blinked his eyes open to a room filled with those accursed tanks. But this wasn't the same room he had started in, and the figures in the tanks were not all the same. Every single figure was different, in fact.

The Man in the Moon walked a ways and then stopped in front of one of the tanks, then gestured for Jack to come and see. Jack didn't want to see anything in this room. These tank things creeped him out, but he figured he might as well humor the guy. He strolled up next to where the Man in the Moon stood, looked up at the figure in the tank, and his heart stopped.

He knew that figure in the tank. A brown-haired teen in pauper's clothes from several hundred years ago. Draped around him was a very familiar cloak. It was him. He knew that face. That was who he had been before he had become Jack Frost, but how was he seeing this? Hadn't the Man in the Moon transformed his body into his new form?

The Man in the Moon then gestured at the figure in the tank. "Your original body," he said. "This isn't the first time you've switched to a new body, Jack. You haven't been in your original body for a very long time."

A million questions sprung into Jack's mind. They all started competing for the right to use Jack's mouth. And thus all his questions got caught in his throat. Only a little one managed to wiggle its way through, and Jack said, "Why?"

The Man in the Moon raised his eyebrow. "Why what?"

Jack waved his arms around as he grasped for words in the air. "Why... everything! Why do you do this? Why am I here now? Why are you guys trying to erase my memory of it? Why... Why did you turn me into this?"

"So many questions," said the Man in the Moon.

Jack nodded his acknowledgment of that fact, but he still needed the answers. "But why?"

"Don't you like being a Guardian, Jack?"

Jack shook his head and slammed his fists by his side. "That's not the point! What I want to know is why this all happened in the first place." He gestured toward his old body. "I was _that._ " He then gestured toward his current body. "Why am I now _this?_ What did I do to deserve getting ripped out of my old body and stuck in this one?"

"The world needed you, Jack," said the Man in the Moon, who then clapped his hand on Jack's shoulder. Jack wasn't sure he wanted the gesture, but didn't shrug the hand off for the moment. "We needed someone who could harness the elements of winter and protect children's sense of fun. Most people couldn't handle such a task, so we chose you."

Jack growled and finally took the opportunity to shrug the Man in the Moon's hand off his shoulder. "But it's not fair! I had a life! Why did you think it was okay to deprive me of the life I had so you could have someone to fill this role? Did it never occur to you to ask me how I felt about all this?"

The Man in the Moon sighed again and shook his head. "Jack, in all fairness, you did drown. If we hadn't done this to you, you would have died."

"But you've got this crazy advanced technology and whatnot." Jack gestured around to the building at large. "You could have revived me and sent me on my way."

The Man in the Moon shook his head. "Reviving someone from drowning without killing them is no easy feat, Jack. What we specialize in here is creating special bodies and switching souls to the new bodies. We don't heal the old bodies."

Jack couldn't argue. If they didn't have the technology, they didn't have the technology. But that didn't excuse the unforgivable acts that had been committed against him. "But you never asked my permission to put me in this body." Jack wrapped his arms around himself and turned his back toward the Man in the Moon. "I would have liked to have some sort of acknowledgement, at least."

"Even if you had still decided on the same path you're on now?"

Jack nodded.

The Man in the Moon paused to consider his words. He nodded as though beginning to understand where Jack was coming from. "Jack," he said, "as terrible an excuse as this may sound to you, we couldn't risk asking permission of anyone from your time. The people in that time were paranoid. Your new life would have been so difficult if word of your existence had somehow leaked into their world. Do you want to think of what they might have done to you while you were in this form?"

Jack shivered as visions of flames and pitchforks filled his head. "I'd rather not think too hard about that."

The Man in the Moon nodded. "I know we didn't handle your case well, but we were out of answers by that point. We assumed pulling anyone out of that situation would improve their life. But we couldn't risk asking them."

Jack wasn't sure he liked that answer, but he couldn't argue with it. If he had been asked and then he had blabbed, things would have gotten harder for him. And the likelihood of him blabbing was not unbelievable. Bunny knew very well that if there was something Jack wasn't supposed to say, he would say it before too long.

After a moment, he said, "But why erase my memories? Why force me to not know what you did to me once my people couldn't hurt me anymore?"

"Ah, that." Once again, the Man in the Moon sighed as though not wanting to explain his reasons but seeing no other option. "Most people who undergo the operation will lose their mind if they remember the details. It's safer to blot those memories out each time they return here for a new body."

"Then why did I manage to maintain my memories thus far?" Jack turned back to face the Man in the Moon, then crossed his arms over his chest. "I was under the impression that switching to a new body was supposed to erase any memory of having been here."

"Normally, that's all it takes, yes," said the Man in the Moon, "but you're special, Jack. You always have been. You've been figuring things out more and more each time you return here. I've been waiting to see how long it would take you to figure it out."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "You expected me to?"

The Man in the Moon nodded. "I was hoping you would." He twirled a finger through the curl on his head. "This business is a tough one, turning people 'immortal' when they're needed for a longer period of time. You have to maintain all the replacement bodies for everyone in the system. You have to keep track of the beings on Earth so you know when they need a new body. And you have to ensure that none of this makes them lose their minds. This requires someone to live long enough to know all the people in the system. And they have to understand the full context of who is needed and when. So we have to have someone in charge with a sort of 'immortality' up here too."

Jack raised an eyebrow as he regarded the man. "I would assume you mean yourself there."

The Man in the Moon nodded. "You catch on. Now, the problem is that sooner or later one's soul gets tired of clinging to bodies. Each transfer it grows weaker and weaker. You're nowhere near that point yet, Jack. But I'm not sure how many bodies I can maintain before I pass on into the otherworld. I need to find myself a replacement before that happens. Someone who has a desperate need to help protect the people of Earth. Someone who is capable of having full knowledge of all this without losing their mind."

Jack stared uncomprehendingly at the Man in the Moon for a moment as the man stared back. After a moment, Jack caught the way the man looked at him, popped his eyes wide open, then gestured toward himself. "You don't mean _me,_ do you?"

"Why not?" said the Man in the Moon. "You fit the bill perfectly. You even found your way to the control room and managed to send a message to the Guardians. You're perfect for this job."

Jack placed a hand on his forehead. No wonder he had managed to escape from the clutches of those other people and not get caught. No wonder he had found the control room completely empty. The Man in the Moon had been testing him to see if he could figure all this out on his own. He could feel a headache coming on.

"So, what do you say?" said the Man in the Moon. "Do you want to become my protege and learn how to do what I do?"

Jack sighed. "I'm not even made to handle working in a place like this. I'm a nature spirit, remember? I'll freeze everything I touch."

The Man in the Moon dismissed his concern with a wave of his hand. "Your powers are in your current body. All you need is another set of bodies made for you that are more appropriate to your new role." Jack shivered and his stomach did a somersault, but he maintained an appearance of calm.

He shook his head. "No, I'm sorry, but I don't want to be stuck on the moon. I miss my friends on the earth."

"You can have them come up here any time you wish. I can teach you how to transport people here with the push of a button."

Jack sighed and shook his head. "Still, I don't feel comfortable with the idea. Me, the new Man in the Moon? Thanks, but no thanks. I'm still determining the ethicalness of what you're doing with your company without doing it myself. My place is on Earth."

The Man in the Moon seemed disappointed. His shoulders sagged. "You don't suppose there's any chance of changing your mind?"

Jack shrugged. "I don't know. Give me another couple hundred years or so. The idea might have grown on me then. But for now, I need to be down there."

The Man in the Moon held out his hands in a resigned gesture. "Very well then. I'll hold on as long as I can. Understand that you're welcome to pay a visit up here anytime you wish. Now," he turned and grabbed a small item that was about the size of his fist, "about your memories."

Jack's eyes widened and he took a couple steps away from the man. He began to shake his head. "Don't take them away from me again. I'll get them back sooner or later, and then I'll only be angrier that you tried to keep them from me."

The Man in the Moon chuckled. "I know. I was actually going to trigger all your other memories to come back. You still have all the memories of having been here before buried in your soul somewhere. A little spark ought to bring all those memories out."

Jack didn't deny he was hesitant to trust this man since he wasn't sure if it was a trick to erase Jack's memories. He decided to trust the man on this though and see what happened. His memories were bound to return sooner or later even if it was a trick.

One click of the Man in the Moon's device as it lay against Jack's head, and all his missing memories came flooding back. He had been here before. Many times. As he counted over his memories, it dawned on him that this wasn't his second change into a new body. It was his tenth. It seemed he got himself into mortal peril every thirty years on average and had to replace his body. That was kind of creepy. He should try to stop being such a risk taker.

"Alright, that should do it," said the Man in the Moon. "Now come on, let's get you home." He led Jack back to the elevator thing and teleported back to the control room. Then he retrieved Jack's staff and handed it to him.

"Now, remember," said the Man in the Moon, "most people can't handle what you've experienced here. Don't go blabbing about everything you've seen."

"I make no promises," said Jack. "If someone asks me, I'll tell them. But... if they seem they would rather be ignorant, I suppose I can let them."

"Good enough," said the Man in the Moon. He then directed Jack to stand on a circular pad in the middle of the room. "I hope to see you around here again soon, Jack."

Jack shrugged. "Maybe, but I hope not too soon. I like keeping my feet on the ground, thank you."

"Ha, says the person who flies everywhere."

"You know what I mean!" said Jack.

The Man in the Moon laughed as he pulled a lever, and the pad beneath Jack's feet started to glow. "Well, goodbye for now, Jack."

"Goodbye," said Jack, and then the light flashed up over him and everything vanished from sight.

When his vision cleared, he saw four sets of worried eyes poring over him. His first reaction was to yelp since these people didn't understand personal space. But he soon regained his bearings and realized he was in the presence of the Guardians. He breathed a sigh of relief. It was okay. He was back on the earth. Everything would be alright now.

"Is everything okay, Jack?" said a worried Toothiana.

He flashed her a thumbs up and said, "As okay as talking with that guy ever can get. My head is more muddled than ever, but no bones are broken or anything."

Jack caught a very worried expression from Sandy who wasn't falling for his facade. That could be a problem if Sandy decided to go and make the other Guardians start worrying about him. He rolled his eyes. "I'm fine, Sandy, but you know how he is. Mr. Confusing himself, am I right?" Sandy snorted, but had to concede with a shrug and a smile that Jack had a point there.

"So, Jack, what does Man in Moon want with you?" said North.

Jack jumped up, pinched North on the nose, and said, "That's for me to know and for you to find out." He laughed and took to the air. He claimed he was overdue for a few storms and needed to get to them. They wanted him to stay and explain everything, but he shook his head as he flew off.

Now he knew what he'd felt was so off about his life, but the question remained whether the knowledge was worth it. He shrugged. Oh well. He would know in time.

His life may not have been the life he asked for, but it was what he had, and he couldn't go back and change things. In the meantime, he was going to live life to the fullest extent that he could. Who knows? Maybe he would eventually understand all this. Maybe he would become okay with the turns his life had taken.

Maybe he would even be okay with becoming MIM.

 _ **So, now the first arc is done and we finally have answers! What did you guys think of this arc? Feel free to let me know your thoughts or ask questions or whatever you like. I just like hearing from you guys. :)**_

 _ **There's still a whole lot more story to tell, so stay tuned for the start of the next arc soon!**_


	7. Part 2: Chapter 7

_**Hey, guys! Here's the first chapter to arc two! It's not as drama-filled as arc one, hence the hurt/comfort genre in addition to the drama, but hopefully you guys will like it as well. :) It's still covering things that my early betas had really wanted covered. This would have been a single arc story if not for them telling me what else needed to happen in the story for them to feel it was complete.**_

 _ **Also, sorry for skipping yesterday. I just couldn't deal with editing and then posting yesterday, so I apologize. I have this chapter taken care of now at least. I don't yet know how many chapters arc two will be broken into, but it's a little bit shorter than arc one, so it probably won't be as many chapters. Arc three might be even shorter, but we'll see. It depends on where I find natural breaks in the storytelling.**_

 _ **Anyway, thanks for your patience and your loyalty to this story. I love you all! Enjoy the chapter!**_

 _ **Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians or the Guardians of Childhood.**_

He was losing his place. That much was clear, and Jack was not happy about it. Not one little bit. Why had the Man in the Moon thought it a good idea to turn him into a Guardian when Earth's temperature was rising? He had to have known said wintery Guardian wouldn't be able to last in that position for long. Jack grumbled and crossed his arms over his chest. The guy probably had indeed planned on this. Manny had wanted Jack to take over his job on the moon, even though Jack hadn't been so keen on the idea.

Jack sat against a window at North's workshop and wistfully looked out at the ice spreading out as far as he could see. He could still pretend for the time being that he was in the middle of a large continent filled with ice. Where the children came out to play with him in the snow every day.

The winters on both sides of the planet had been getting warmer, forcing him to retreat earlier each year. The north pole hadn't melted yet. But North still made preparations to move his workshop once there wasn't enough ice. There was no way Jack wanted to give up all this, but at the rate things were going, did he have a choice?

A bright light penetrated the stillness, and Jack looked up in time to see a moonbeam rushing toward him. He rolled his eyes and huffed. "Oh, it's you. What do you want this time?"

The moonbeam reached him in less than a moment. It spun around him as it relayed its message before departing back to where it had come from. Another eye roll from Jack, and he stood up. "Alright, fine. It's not like I have anything else to do today anyway." Jack stepped over to the area of the floor covered with the symbol of the Guardians. He raised his hands in an exaggerated gesture and said, "Beam me up!"

Within the space of about two seconds, Jack Frost vanished from Earth and reappeared on the moon. The trip didn't faze him as it had the first few times Manny had called him up to the moon. He had since made so many trips up to the moon that he was now getting quite used to it. The man had insisted he teach Jack to take over regardless of whether Jack accepted the position. Jack wasn't sure how to argue with that. Over the past few decades, Jack had gotten familiar with the operations of MIM Industries. He could take over if he actually wanted to. But who would want to give up being a Guardian?

Well, there was that one annoying little problem of him becoming unable to handle the heat. But couldn't Manny make him a more heat-resistant body so he could do his job better on Earth? The trick was convincing the guy to do it.

"Ah, hello, Jack!" Jack then found his back accosted by a couple eager slaps from the little man. "Just in time. We're trying to sketch up some designs for Fiona, but you have a much better eye for that than I do." Jack nodded and fell into step behind the Man in the Moon as they went to the meeting room. Fiona was a girl who was about to be turned immortal. MIM Industries had asked her permission at Jack's insistence. It would have messed her up in the head if they hadn't asked first. Manny had not argued with him and went along with Jack's demand.

"So what are we working on today?" said Jack as they stepped into the meeting room. "Did you figure out the sequins on her dress yet?"

"Yep," said Manny, who then gestured to one of the other staff members in the room. "Minerva handled that. But we thought you could give some insight into her hair since you actually know what it's like to be a nature immortal."

"Ah," said Jack, and he took his seat as he thought through this problem. Fiona was going to be in charge of developing a form of nature he didn't know too well. The plants and animals were adapting to a hotter climate on Earth. She would make sure Earth transitioned safely into a different climate cycle.

"Well," said Jack, "the weather is getting restless on Earth, which means that she's going to have to face windy days. We want hair that doesn't get too tangled. I would recommend that it have no more than a slight wave if it's to be longer hair than mine. And I don't recommend designing it to go past her shoulders, unless she has expressed a desire to tie her hair back."

The staff took down his words on their transcription boards. Jack still thought they resembled high tech clipboards more than anything. One person printed out a digital sheet of paper with his device and handed it to Jack. He loved this technology. It let him hold paper like old times. If he decided that he didn't need it anymore, he could delete it and the paper would vanish. Without creating waste.

"What about the color?" someone said.

Jack raised an eyebrow and regarded a strand of his own hair as he pondered the question. "Well, definitely not white if she's going to be dealing with heat." That earned a chuckle or two as he flashed his characteristic smirk and rocked back in his seat. "People who live in hotter climates usually have darker hair for a reason. It protects their scalp from sunburn."

The staff jotted this down and the new point appeared on his paper. It was another advantage of using this digital variety. Jack proceeded to brainstorm with the staff about different hair types. Then he demanded they call up Fiona herself and get her take on a couple options he was considering. He believed the person in question should have much more say on the body they were going to inhabit. Within a couple hours, they had agreed upon an acceptable design for the hair. They then sent it off to the hair designer.

Jack stretched and stood up. "Well, not like this isn't fun or anything, but I need to go and find some sort of trouble to get into before I lose my mind." All the other staff members laughed, used to Jack's behavior by now. He left the room and soon noticed that Manny himself had followed him, who then proceeded to clap Jack on the back.

"Well done, Jack. I knew you'd be able to help us iron out that problem. We often get stuck on the hair."

Jack looked up at his own hair in response to this. He had always wondered why the Man in the Moon had chosen to make his hair white, of all things. "Gee, you think?" He then chuckled and began to wander down the hall, knowing Manny would follow him. He didn't mind. It was better than pining to go out causing trouble somewhere other than the north pole. The moon was considerably larger.

"Hey, Manny," said Jack, taking an awkward breath and then deciding he might as well blurt out what was on his mind. The Man in the Moon's attention was on him anyway. "You spend all this time designing bodies for all these other people to help them do their jobs better... but what about me? I'm restricted to a very small part of Earth nowadays."

Manny chuckled and patted Jack on the back. "We know, Jack, we know. We've been recreating your back up bodies in our spare time. We haven't been as rushed with you since you actually _do_ have back ups, even if they're not ideal for you anymore."

Jack raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Wait, you actually have been working on it?" At the nod from Manny, Jack decided to press his luck a little further. He asked the next question that had been eating at him. "What is going to happen with my powers? I mean, I won't be able to go around throwing snow everywhere if I have a more suitable body, will I?"

This only prompted a laugh from Manny, who shook his head and then assured Jack that he'd find out soon enough. "Your first back up should be ready within a few days."

"Really?" Jack bounced on his heels in excitement. While he didn't relish the idea of switching bodies again, he looked forward to going wherever he wanted. "Will I still be able to fly?"

Another laugh from the Man in the Moon. "Why don't you wait and see?"

"Aww, but that'll take forever!" The Man in the Moon patted Jack on the back and chuckled again. "What's so funny?"

"I enjoy hearing you talk," said Manny. "You didn't used to talk all that much."

A snort from Jack was the answer to that. "When have I ever been quiet? I mean, have you _met_ me?"

Another laugh was the only answer Jack got to that.

 _ **Can anyone figure out what I'm hinting at yet? This arc has only just started and barely has its conflict in place, but I'm still quite curious about where people think it's going. XD**_

 _ **Anyway, thanks for reading. I'll post up the next chapter soon! Take care, and see you next time!**_


	8. Chapter 8

_**Hey there! It seems people are very amused by some of the foreshadowing they're picking up in the first chapter of this arc. *chuckles* Well, I hope you continue being amused. I'm certainly amused at your amusement. ;)**_

 _ **And now I'm out of babbles for once, so without further ado, enjoy the chapter!**_

 _ **Disclaimer: I don't own ROTG or GOC.**_

The next few days took about a hundred years to pass, or at least that's what Jack would have insisted to anyone who asked. He spent most of the time trying to aim a paddleball at Bunny's head, which distracted the rabbit from his own work. "Oi, Frostbite," he said, "I hope the Man in the bloody Moon finishes whatever he's doing for you soon. I need to get some work done around here."

"And until he does," said Jack, "you get the pleasure of having me hanging around here all the time!"

Bunny deadpanned. "I am so enthused." The fact that the words didn't reach Bunny's eyes made Jack double over in laughter. "Hand me those paint cans, would ya, Frostbite?"

He was about to do what Bunny had asked when a moonbeam flew in and circled around Jack's wrist. Jack then smirked at his comrade and said, "On second thought, I'll leave all that lovely hard work to you."

"Why, you..." Bunny threw down his paintbrush upon seeing the moonbeam around Jack's wrist. "As soon as you get back from that bloody moon, I am going to work that lazy hyde of yours so hard. When you next refuse to get up and work, it'll be because you're too sore to even move."

"Aw, sorry," said Jack with a smirk. "While working myself to death sounds like a buttload of fun, I'm afraid I won't be able to make it. Rain check?"

Bunny grumbled in response. Jack chuckled as he stepped onto the Guardian circle once again and beamed up to the moon. He still hadn't told the other Guardians what he was doing up on the moon so often. They assumed the Man in the Moon was keeping Jack busy so he wouldn't get into too much trouble. Jack thought it best to let them keep thinking that for now. If they thought for a second that Manny wanted Jack to take over as the leader of the Guardians, they'd flip.

As the control room of MIM Industries came into view, Manny walked up to him and smiled. "This is a big day for us, isn't it?"

Jack quirked an eyebrow. "Us? I don't recall inviting you to share this body with me."

This only caused the Man in the Moon to start laughing at the ridiculous notion. He didn't bother responding to Jack's comment otherwise. Jack assumed that meant it was too silly to say anything to.

They ventured to the room where Jack had first woken up after his encounter with the polar bears. He shivered at seeing all the replicas of himself floating in their glass containers. He would never get used to it, but at least he didn't have to see this sight every day.

Manny helped Jack into one of the empty glass tubes. He wanted nothing to do with this part of the process. But he thought it better to get this ordeal over with so that he could stop feeling trapped by his own body. He jumped into the strange liquid and coughed as his lungs adjusted to breathing it instead of air.

Once he had calmed down, Manny approached the tube and said, "You ready?" Or that's what Jack assumed he'd said. It was hard to hear while in these tubes, but Jack nodded anyway. He didn't feel ready, but he never would be.

Manny flipped the switch. That awful electric feeling returned, making Jack feel like he was being ripped apart. At least this time he knew what was happening, but it didn't make the situation any more pleasant. Now that he wasn't getting his memories erased, he was going to have to subject himself to this for the rest of his life. He took a slight comfort in the fact that at least Manny knew what this felt like. The guy had been doing it to himself for thousands of years. Jack had no idea how the guy had been able to take it all those times. It had to have been horrifying.

After a few painful minutes, Jack blacked out. A moment later, he found himself waking up once again. At least the transition had been easier this time since it hadn't been rushed. It meant he could collect himself a bit faster. Teaching his new muscles how to move for the first time was going to be a pain, but he wasn't scared at least.

Manny approached the canister that held Jack and plugged a microphone into the base. "Are you okay there, Jack?" Jack nodded, struggling a little with making his neck muscles move like that so soon, but he managed fine. "Okay," said Manny, "we're going to give you a few minutes to adjust, and then we'll get you out of there." Jack nodded again as the Man in the Moon unplugged the microphone and left the room.

Over the next few minutes, Jack worked at training his muscles on how to move. He was so grateful he didn't have to do this while on the run this time. It made him feel a lot less vulnerable. Finally, Manny came back into the room with a few staff members and began giving out orders. Within moments, Jack was lifted out of the cylinder and held above it for a moment. He coughed out the liquid and allowed air to reenter his lungs. No, enter his lungs for the first time. He'd forgotten he was in a new body.

Did that mean he wasn't a winter sprite anymore? What was he? What kind of powers did he have now?

As soon as he was breathing normally, he was placed on a mat where he could dry off and recover from the ordeal. This was so much nicer than the last time. Not scaring your clients was definitely a good thing.

After some time had passed, the Man in the Moon approached him and said, "How are you feeling, Jack?"

Jack looked over at him and rasped out, "I'm okay. A little sore."

Manny chuckled. "Of course. That'll go away soon. Think you can sit up?" He held out a hand to Jack and helped him up to a sitting position, which soon led to helping Jack to stand up as well.

After a couple hours, the soreness had passed. Jack had to admit that he felt pretty good, and now he was itching to discover his new powers. Manny still wasn't giving him any hints, which figured. Manny was like that.

It was clear after a couple attempts that calling to the wind like he used to wasn't going to get him anywhere. That left him a bit bummed. His staff hadn't frosted up upon his touch either. That caused some mixed feelings, but at least it meant he wouldn't be isolated anymore. That was definitely a plus. He would be able to go and see any kid, anytime, anywhere he wanted. That thought alone excited him enough that he took a leap into the air... and didn't come back down.

"Whoa!" Jack gestured to his feet hovering in midair. "Are you seeing this? I didn't even call on the wind!" The Man in the Moon laughed and grasped Jack by the ankle to help him back to the ground.

"Now, Jack", he said, taking a serious tone that Jack was uncomfortable with. "You have been trained in how to do my job. You can even do it better than me now. The only thing that was hindering you was your body, and now that's been taken care of as well."

Jack narrowed his eyes at Manny. "You're not trying to make me agree to that again, are you?"

Manny shrugged. "I keep hoping. But I'll send you back to Earth now if you wish."

Great. Now Jack felt guilty. He ran his fingers through his hair. It was true that he now knew Manny's job inside and out, and it wasn't that bad. But giving up being a Guardian to be the leader of the Guardians still unnerved him. He wasn't strong enough for that. He knew he wasn't. He was barely strong enough to be the Guardian of Fun, and that was the most reckless Guardian of them all.

That thought made him pause. "But, wait... If I became the Man in the Moon, wouldn't that leave my position open? Who would be protecting the Fun in children?"

Manny placed his hands in his pockets like he wasn't worried a bit, which if Jack was honest with himself, the guy wasn't. "Well, you did teach that little friend of yours everything you knew."

Jack blinked. "You mean Jamie? But he's getting kind of old, isn't he?" "Old" was putting it lightly. Jamie was in his nineties by now.

The Man in the Moon laughed and gestured to another corner of the room where there were bodies other than Jack's. While he didn't care to look at these things when there weren't souls in them, he might as well see what Manny wanted. As soon as he got to that corner of the room, he gasped and spun around.

"You made back up bodies for Jamie? Why?"

"I told him I needed his help, and he agreed."

Jack blinked, not sure what to make of this. Jamie was going to become immortal too? He had agreed to it, even at his age? At least the bodies were a lot younger than Jamie's current body. That would be a lot more pleasant for Jamie, but it was still surprising. "Is he going to take over my position?"

"Only if you let him," said Manny. "I didn't force you to become a Guardian, and I won't force you out of it. You've been through enough without having the things you love torn from you."

Jack nodded, but he didn't say anything on the matter for the rest of the day. Jamie? A Guardian? He had to admit that he had always thought the kid had it in him. It had never occurred to him that he had been training Jamie to take over his job. Jamie didn't have fun in the same way Jack did, but he could enchant an entire auditorium of kids with one of his stories. He'd seen it. He had to admit that stories were every bit as effective for having fun as an all out snowball war.

It wasn't until night fell back home on Earth that he emerged from the place he had been hiding. He stood outside the control room door. Was he was making the right decision? He hadn't even knocked, but Manny must have known he was there because the door swung open. Manny greeted him with a smile.

Jack sighed. "You're sure the children won't need me?"

The Man in the Moon frowned. "Of course they need you. They always will. But that doesn't mean you can do everything, Jack. You're not helping them any less by taking over my position. And there's no rule against you going out into the field, you know."

Jack let his shoulders hang. "I know."

Manny patted Jack on the back and escorted him into the control room. They discussed the details over tea and cookies and hot chocolate. After some time, Jack warmed up to the idea. He agreed to take the job, so long as he could make as many trips to Earth as he wished.

"What will happen to you after I take the job?" asked Jack.

Manny smiled, seeming glad that Jack even cared about this. "I'll stick around for a while so that you can come to me for guidance. When you're ready to fly solo, I'll go and reset."

Jack quirked an eyebrow. "Reset?"

"Yep," said Manny. "It's a little trick some of us do if we've had too many body changes or have experienced some other kind of severe trauma. I'm going to take on a mortal form for a while. When I'm ready, you can change me back to being immortal again."

Jack's eyes widened. "And then you'll be okay?"

"Works every time," said Manny with a nod. "Providing of course that the person doesn't get themselves killed while mortal. It provides your soul with a chance to rest and come together after the strain of being immortal so long. That's why it's called a reset."

"I see," said Jack as he looked down at his cup of hot chocolate. "Well, don't get yourself killed while in that form. I would not be happy."

"I'll be careful."

"You'd better."

A couple hours later, Jack found himself standing in front of the entire staff of MIM Industries. Manny paraded him around as the new Man in the Moon. Everyone cheered on his behalf, but Jack couldn't help but feel awkward. He still felt like the same old Jack Frost he'd always been, not some all powerful Man in the Moon guy. Granted, he knew that the Man in the Moon wasn't some all powerful being nowadays. But still. He didn't feel qualified, even though he couldn't think of a necessary task that he couldn't do.

And he knew of some things that needed to be changed.

 _ **Whoo! Jack has a new body... again. Because this story is weird like that. Or I'm weird like that. Or something. Yeah, we'll go with that. :P I'm curious about your thoughts on this chapter as well, haha.**_

 _ **Anyway, thanks for reading, and hope to see you around next time! Take care!**_


	9. Chapter 9

_**Hey, everybody! Welcome back! Here's the next chapter. This one's a bit short, but I think you'll like it anyway. ;)**_

 _ **Before I go on, I thought I'd address this review by Mikayla Elwood here, even though it's a signed review. If they're confused about this, I'd imagine others must be. They asked, "Are you going to continue this story?" I'm not sure how I wasn't clear on that, but since I apparently wasn't, the answer is a resounding YES. This story has three arcs to it, and it won't end until the last chapter of the last arc is posted. My husband is gunning for me to write more arcs to this story too, and if that happens, I'll make sure to let you all know. I don't currently have any plot past the third arc, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. I'd be happy to take suggestions after all of the third arc has been posted too. ;)**_

 _ **But anyway, without further ado, here's the chapter! Enjoy!**_

 _ **Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians or the Guardians of Childhood books.**_

As soon as the official title transferred to him, Jack called North for a shipment of paintball guns. He didn't tell North about his new job position, or even let him figure out he was talking to Jack. He found it funnier to leave North wondering why the Man in the Moon had such an urgent need for paintball guns.

Within hours, the paintball guns arrived on the moon, and Jack handed them out to each employee he could find. "There's going to be a new rule around here: no boring is allowed. Not on my watch." He bit his lip to keep from laughing out loud at the confused reactions his employees were giving him. "And the decor of this place is too austere for me to be able to think straight. So everyone needs to come out into the hallways and take part in this paintball battle to the death."

"But-?" said someone who was uncertain about Jack's new direction for the company.

Jack responded by giving the guy a pointed look and said, "Do it or you're fired." He laughed and fired his first round of paintballs at the guy who dared question his authority. That seemed to snap the rest of the employees into action. Within minutes, there was a paintball fight in the hallways. None of them had ever seen its like. The hallway soon got coated in many layers of patchy bright paint. There was nothing boring about the place now.

Jack dusted off his hands and threw his paintball gun aside. "Good. I would call that a job well done." He sauntered past his employees' baffled stares and Manny's laughter from somewhere nearby. It was good to know his efforts were appreciated.

His next order of business involved setting up better communications. Most humans had no way of communicating on the frequencies MIM Industries used. This was why they chose to use those frequencies for their technology. But this became a problem when they wanted to reach out to the humans themselves. They had some human technology collecting dust, so Jack leapt into the air and flew down to the basement. He'd forgotten that this was a new form of flight, and he kept running into walls on his way, but he figured it out.

Finally in the basement, he shuffled between the various boxes trying to find what he wanted, but it was hard to see. There wasn't much light down here. Didn't they believe in having night lights around here or anything? A flashlight would be acceptable too. He continued to stumble his way through the dimness since he couldn't figure out where the light switch was. That endeavor ended once he stubbed his toes once too many times on things he couldn't see.

"Gah! I wish I had a light!" And just like that, Jack lit up like a lightbulb. He stopped what he was doing and stared at his hands. He puzzled at the blue light coming out of them and every other part of him. He could light up? Why hadn't Manny informed him of that little tidbit? It would have been quite useful to know that before he'd stubbed his toe twenty times.

Being this bright made it easy for him to find the boxes he was looking for. He soon found himself back up on the main floor as he walked to the control room. He hadn't stopped glowing even though he no longer needed it to see, but he couldn't figure out how to turn it off. Maybe it would turn off on its own after a while.

A person walked past him in the hall, waved at him, and said, "Hey, Nightlight."

That caused Jack to do a double take. "What kind of nickname is that?" The person only laughed, so Jack shrugged it off and went on his way. The people who worked at this place were strange.

It didn't take long for Jack to get the equipment hooked up. He tested it by contacting Jamie via human means. It seemed to get Jamie all the more excited about working with the Guardians. Jack rolled his eyes and chuckled. Jamie was weird too. Everyone seemed to be weird today.

The weirdness didn't stop there either. Now that he was glowing and couldn't shut it off, that nickname of Nightlight spread across the complex. Soon everyone was calling him that. He tried a few times to object with, "Uh, my name is Jack," but that only caused the perpetrators to laugh and go on their way. Was he missing out on some sort of inside joke? He felt left out about something.

It wasn't until several weeks later that he finally snapped at an employee. "Why do you all keep calling me Nightlight?"

The poor woman gulped and said, "Well, Manny always used to say that Nightlight was going to be the one who took over for him, so..."

Jack ran his fingers through his hair and growled. "So that's what this is? People think I'm this Nightlight guy?" At the uncomfortable look the woman gave him, he concluded that must be the case and rephrased. "Who is Nightlight?" That question only made her all the more uncomfortable. She started looking to go and get back to whatever she was doing before Jack had snapped at her. He had to admit that he felt kind of bad for doing that when it was an honest mistake on her part. He apologized and let her run off without another word.

But now Jack had a lot more questions, and he was determined to get answers. The first chance he got, he sought out Manny and cornered him with the question. "Alright, who is this Nightlight guy?"

Manny laughed and said, "What?"

Jack folded his arms over his chest and said, "Don't tell me you haven't noticed that everyone seems to be calling me that."

Another laugh from Manny. "Well, I did try to tell them that your name was Jack."

"So why aren't they listening to you?"

Yet another laugh from Manny. "Maybe they like the name Nightlight better." Then, without waiting for Jack to probe him with any more questions, he made a hasty retreat. He never actually answered who Nightlight was, and this was not missed by Jack. Manny was a sneak, and he always had been. But Jack knew two could play at this game.

 _ **So there you go. I finally teased you guys with some of what you were wanting to see. ;) Let me know what you think, and I'll be sure to post the next chapter tomorrow!**_

 _ **Take care, and see you next time!**_


	10. Chapter 10

_**Hey, guys! Sorry for how late in the day this chapter got posted. The hours just kind of slipped away today. *le sigh* Just one of those days, I guess. I need to get around to editing the third arc too since the chapter after this is the last chapter in this arc. At least it's conveniently falling on a Friday this time, so if I dally a bit with my editing, it'll be during the weekend when no one is online anyway. *laughs* But I'll try to avoid gaps if I can. We'll see what happens though. I'll definitely have it all edited soon either way.**_

 _ **Also, sorry if you've left a signed review and I haven't responded. I've been a real space case this week, and I apologize for that. I'm not even entirely sure who I did and didn't respond to already, eh heh. It's just been one of those weeks. I still respond to everyone I can and I definitely read every single review and love them, but my brain is on an all expenses paid trip to Hawaii. I'm not sure when it's coming back. :P**_

 _ **Anyway, without further ado, enjoy the chapter!**_

 _ **Disclaimer: Still don't own ROTG or GOC. And that's such a boring disclaimer. I'm mildly ashamed at my boring disclaimer skills nowadays. XD**_

He tried cornering Manny several more times on the issue. Manny always found some way to slip away without answering the question. What was so hard about answering a question about who someone was? If Manny had wanted this guy to take over for him, then he had to have been someone important to Manny. Jack ought to know who the guy was.

It seemed Manny wasn't going to make it easy. So Jack was going to have to try and access the MIM Industries database and solve the mystery on his own. Only problem was that finding things in the database wasn't always easy. Manny had claimed that was for security reasons, since you had to know what you were looking for in order to find it. Jack thought that was bull and planned to change it the first chance he got. But he hadn't been the Man in the Moon for long, and that was a huge undertaking to pursue.

Sure enough, punching in the name of "Nightlight" turned up no results. Jack sighed. Of course this would have to be one of Manny's protected entries. He was going to have to learn more about this Nightlight character before he could find him in the database. But who could he ask who would answer his question?

A beeping sound broke him out of his stupor. He spun around to find he was receiving an incoming call from the Guardians. They could help him as well as anyone. Could he get away with turning on the screens and having a face to face conversation? A quick check of the current bandwidth usage revealed that this time, he could. So long as he kept the conversation short. He pressed a button and the screen popped up with a view of the Guardians.

A pause, followed by a startled, "...Jack?!" from Tooth made him chuckle. He had allowed them to see his face. So they could see he was in the control room doing important things. They had never guessed Manny would allow him to touch anything fragile. This was hilarious.

"Oh, you were expecting the Easter Bunny?" said Jack, his characteristic smirk finding its way onto his face. The Easter Bunny in question seemed offended at being mentioned in such a casual manner. This only made Jack more amused.

"We expected the Man in the Moon, actually," said Tooth.

"Yeah, well, you got him," said Jack as best he could without cracking up at their reactions.

"But you're not-"

"Manny stepped down," said Jack. "He's been training me to take his place for decades and recently instated me as being the new Man in the Moon." Then, making sure not to give them the time to react, he turned to them and said, "So what did you guys want, anyway?"

"We were just-" Tooth faltered and turned to North to have him help her out.

"We hear from Jamie that Man in Moon say he can be Guardian. So we call to find out."

Jack chuckled and let a small smile cross his face. "I can't fulfill my Guardian duties now, can I? Don't worry, I've been training Jamie on how to handle my job since he was very young. He'll be a great fit. We're going to turn him immortal next week."

This caused a flurry of reactions from the Guardians as they tried to process what Jack was telling them. A Guardian replacement? They'd never had that happen before. Not to mention a Man in the Moon replacement. That was unheard of. North finally found his voice and said, "Jack, is this joke?"

Jack's face sobered up and he approached the screen to get a better look at the Guardians. "It's no joke, guys. We didn't tell you because we knew you would freak out, but the change up here won't affect your work in any significant way. You'll just be answering to me instead of Manny."

This put the Guardians into a stupor for several more moments. Then Bunny hopped forward. "But what about Jamie, mate? If what you say is true, we'll be working with him from now on. Why weren't we told about this?"

Jack shrugged. "I was only just told myself. Manny kept that a secret until the last minute." He then let a smile cross his face again. "But you'll be fine. And won't you enjoy having a little less bickering, Bunny?"

" _Less_ bickering? When I have to answer to _you?_ " Jack chuckled, which provoked Bunny to throw his paws in the air and storm away. "Stone the flamin' crows! Jack in charge? The bloody world is gonna end!"

With Bunny out of the picture, things were finally quiet enough to think, and Jack sobered up once again. "Hey, guys, can I ask _you_ a question now?" After getting their nods of approval, Jack took a deep breath. He checked to make sure he wasn't currently glowing before saying, "Who is Nightlight?"

This prompted startled gasps from the Guardians, which only confused Jack even more. Why did everyone react this way at the mention of the guy? "Have you found him?" said Tooth. "Is he okay?"

Jack waved his hands and shook his head. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up. No one will even tell me who he _is_. I know he's important because I keep hearing people use his name, but no one seems to want to speak of him. Who is he?"

"Can you not use database?" said North.

Jack sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "That's the thing. Manny has a strange setup with that where I can't access files without a little more information. He thinks it's more secure or something. I think it's dangerous."

"You will change that?"

Jack nodded. "Yep, as soon as I get the chance. But right now, I need to know. Who _is_ he?"

The Guardians sighed and looked at the ground. Jack waited a moment before North addressed him again. "He was Man in Moon's-uh-Manny's Guardian as child. He protected Manny from Pitch, and protected children as well."

Jack rubbed his chin as he pondered this. "Sounds like a pretty cool guy. What happened to him?"

A sigh. "We don't know," said Tooth. She looked up to meet Jack's eyes, then looked away once again. "He disappeared one day. We've always been afraid Pitch got to him, but Pitch isn't about to spill about that. And Manny hasn't been very forthcoming with that information either, if he knows it."

"Tricky," said Jack, and he began walking toward the database controls once again. "But I might be able to figure out what Manny did with him now. Let's see..." He pushed a few buttons and brought up a list of categories. Knowing that Nightlight had been Manny's Guardian was useful. Jack figured Manny might have counted him as one of the Guardians. He looked in the Guardian category, but to no avail. Then he looked under Protectors, but found no listing in there either. He remembered people had started calling Jack by the nickname due to his new glowing ability. So he checked under the listing of Light, but still came up short.

Scratching his head, he turned back to the screen. "Either he doesn't have a case file for Nightlight, which I find hard to believe, or this guy's file is _really_ protected."

The other Guardians sighed, and North turned to walk away. "I should get back to work. Must reset trains so they run on proper tracks."

Jack blinked a couple times at the words before they registered, then his eyes went wide. "Wait! Could Nightlight have been reset?"

This prompted wide eyed reactions from the Guardians as they pondered that. They knew what it meant. How they had never considered the possibility when they knew it was done was beyond him.

Jack whipped out his access card and swiped it in the machine. The Reset category had extra protections. It was to ensure that the people affected weren't targeted while they were vulnerable. Once into the Reset category, Jack did a quick search for Nightlight, then came back cheering. "Success!"

"You find him?" said North.

"He was reset?" said Tooth. Meanwhile, Sandy looked baffled between everyone talking, torn between being startled and relieved.

"Apparently," said Jack as he opened Nightlight's file and began reading. "He sounds like an interesting guy." He laughed. "Oh gosh, all these pranks he played are in his file too."

The Guardians chuckled, and Bunny came back into the room to find the others focused on what Jack was doing. Once he was filled in on what Jack had found out, Bunny bounded forward and said, "Bloody hell, Jack! Who is he now then?"

Jack snorted and turned to face Bunny. "I haven't gotten that far yet, and even if I had, I don't think I'm allowed to tell you. His file is protected for a reason."

"Frostbite, I swear, if you play these games I'm gonna come up to the moon and I'm gonna-"

"Hush!" Jack swiped his hand for silence as he continued to read the words on the screen. That couldn't be what he thought... could it?

"What? What is it?" said Bunny. "What's wrong, Frostbite?"

Jack mashed the print button and whipped out the sheet of digital paper. Then he took off running without bothering to end the conversation. He had to find Manny, and now. Where was that guy hiding?

 _ **Dun dun dun! What did Jack find out? (Let's be real, most of you know very well what he just found out, but it's still fun watching him figure it out, haha. I'm just being vague for the sake of the few rare, lucky people who have not caught onto my foreshadowing yet and have yet to figure out what's going on. Lucky peeps. I'd like to not see an ending coming as often as I do. That's just kind of something that ends up happening after you read and write a lot. You start knowing how a story's gonna end... aaaaaannnddd I'm babbling. Obviously reading and writing a lot hasn't cured that. Sorry. Moving on.)**_

 _ **Anyway, I'm curious what you guys think again. It's awesome to hear from you each day. It really brightens up my day and it's sad that I won't be able to keep getting these reviews in every day very soon. *melodramatic sobs* Still, I can enjoy it while it lasts, right? ;)**_

 _ **I'll post the last chapter of this arc tomorrow, so check back soon! Take care, and thanks for reading!**_


	11. Chapter 11

**_Okay, guys, here's the last chapter of arc two. I haven't yet edited arc three, but I'll do my best to do that over the weekend so I can post up the next chapter no later than Monday. Maybe sooner. But I'll try very hard to kick myself into doing it no later than Monday. I would just push myself to do it immediately, but it's looking like I'm getting dragged into trying Inktober at the last minute, and I have to prepare for it. *laughs hysterically* I'm a case of nerves, haha. My hubby suggested I do a Winter Magic coloring book since I've already done a coloring book, which means that Jack will feature heavily in it. Only, in order to publish it, it has to be a new version of Jack, not based off of ROTG. I'm already faceblind as it is, so creating a new character design? *eye twitches* Haha, yeah, I kind of need the remaining time to prepare, but I'll carve out a little time to edit over the weekend too. ;)_**

 ** _Anyway, I'll just let you guys get on with the chapter, since you're all looking forward to that anyway. I'm sorry if I don't get around to responding to people in a timely manner. I still adore the reviews. A lot. I'm just a little bundle of nerves over here who is trying to picture Jack with a different face when I already have a face recognition condition. *snickers* So yeah, getting some reviews might actually help a bit with getting me to take a deep breath and relax. ;)_**

 ** _Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians or the Guardians of Childhood books._**

After catching a few passersby and asking them about Manny's whereabouts, he bolted to the break room. Sure enough, Manny was enjoying a cup of coffee and a couple donuts. It was as though he was taking a normal break from a normal job down on Earth.

Jack stormed toward him. "When did you think you were going to tell me about _this_?" He slammed the paper onto the table in front of Manny. He picked it up, read it, and then deleted it before anyone else could read it.

"So you managed to find the file," said Manny, not answering the question, but since when did he ever? "How do you feel, Jack, now that you know this?"

"Honestly?" A few hysterical laughs escaped his lips, but he wasn't at all happy. "I'm kind of freaked out! Why wouldn't you tell me something that important?"

Manny's face finally sobered up, no longer filled with the mirth or trickery it usually possessed. For the first time in his life, he was seeing Manny take something seriously. He felt he should have been relieved by this, but it only served to freak him out more.

"Pitch hurt you pretty bad, you know."

"Yeah, apparently!" Jack pressed at his temples to stave off the headache he could feel coming on. "But why wouldn't you tell me about this?"

"You've been vulnerable up until now," said Manny. "You still are a little bit. But you're stronger than you've ever been before, so you'll be fine."

Jack's legs grew less able to support him, and he slunk down into a chair opposite Manny. "So you had to reset me?" The pointed stare that Manny gave in response to that question was all the answer Jack needed. He placed his head in his hands. "I'm Nightlight?"

Manny then shook his head and patted Jack on the shoulder. "No, you're Jack. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. But yes, you _were_ Nightlight. We've known each other a very long time. Do you remember anything from before?"

Jack shook his head. He felt a yawning emptiness in his soul at the lack of the memories that he knew should be there and weren't. Even Tooth wouldn't be able to help him with these memories. He doubted she could trigger memories of another life.

Looking up at Manny again, he said, "So when you told the staff that Nightlight was going to take over for you..."

He responded with a nod. "I meant you, yes. And I'm sorry that I put you up to that. The others are going to have a hard time distinguishing between Jack and Nightlight. Most of them don't understand how much a reset will change a person."

Jack sighed and let his shoulders droop. "Then I guess I'd better start getting used to it." He looked back up at Manny. "But you'll still call me Jack, right? You don't expect me to live up to that-that guy who-" Jack couldn't figure out how to describe his feelings, but Manny waved his hand like he understood anyway.

"You be Jack. You're very good at being Jack, and I trust you with my life. You'll never be Nightlight again, but that's okay. Jack is every bit as good of a person as Nightlight was." Jack looked into Manny's eyes to discern whether he was saying these things to shut him up or if he actually meant them. He was met with nothing but sincerity.

"You mean that?" said Jack. "I'm not less than him?"

Manny shook his head. "Not one bit. You amaze me every day with the things you do. I mean, decorating with paintballs? Who else would have had a brilliant idea like that?"

Jack couldn't help but laugh at that, but one more thing nagged at him. "What's with these new powers? They seemed a lot like the ones I read about in Nightlight's file."

Manny nodded at this, not even trying to weasel his way out of the question this time. "They are. They'll manifest differently this time, but I didn't want to shift you to a set of powers you were unfamiliar with. Once you were done with being the spirit of winter, I switched you back to the powers you knew."

"But I don't remember these powers."

"You do deep down. Why do you think you learned how to fly and glow so quickly? You'll learn how to do some of the other things Nightlight could do in time. Or maybe you'll surprise us and start doing things that Nightlight couldn't."

Jack chuckled at this. "I do tend to do that, don't I?"

An answering chuckle from Manny. "All the time, Jack. You amaze us all the time."

Jack ended his conversation with Manny and headed back to the control room. He had to try and console the Guardians since he had left them in a fright. "Sorry about that, guys," he said, then laughed at himself. "It's okay though. Nightlight is okay."

"Really?" said Tooth, ruffling up her feathers. "Where is he?"

Jack turned away from the screen as he felt a tear slip out unbidden from his eye. Thank goodness he didn't have to deal with frozen tears anymore. He grasped the tear before it could fall off his face, then held it in his hand as he looked at it. A girl's face flashed through his mind. A girl whose tears he had held as he held his own now. He would ask Manny about that later.

For now, he turned to face the Guardians, smiled at them, and said, "I'll tell you when he's ready to let you know, okay?" They seemed a little bit dejected at that announcement, but didn't make a fuss. Jack then turned off the screen and plopped into a chair, exhausted from that whole ordeal.

As he relaxed, he began glowing again, and he didn't try to stop it. It was okay if people called him Nightlight, he realized. It wasn't who he was anymore, but he didn't mind being remembered that way so long as his close friends knew to call him Jack.

After he'd rested for a while, he jumped out of the chair and ran off. They may call him by the wrong name, but he was going to imprint who he was into their minds one way or another. His next mission: exploding water balloons.

Jack laughed to himself as he prepared the items for his next prank. As much as he had changed from one lifetime to the next, some things hadn't changed all that much. And the longer he thought on it, the more he understood how Manny saw him. He'd grown. He'd matured. He'd changed. But he was still the friend Manny had always known and loved.

He peered into the break room and lobbed a water balloon at Manny with a shout of "Think fast!" before it exploded all over the poor guy. Jack's ears were met with an incurable laughter. Soon Jack found himself laughing too as they both got into an all out water balloon battle.

As the two stood dripping dry, Jack realized that he no longer saw Manny in that irritated light. He understood where the guy had been coming from, and why he had hidden all this information from him for so long. Being reset was risky business. Pitch was going to be so upset once he learned the truth. The thought amused him more than he cared to admit.

Manny chucked a balloon Jack's way, and Jack caught it without breaking. The two shared a conspiratorial smirk. Manny then said, "Shall we go and teach all these slow people what your real name is?"

Jack laughed. "You're on!" Moments later, one frustrated employee after another emerged dripping wet from their offices. They wondered what they were going to do with their strange new boss. Manny handed Jack another water balloon. Jack pelted the next person with the amazing precision he'd developed from all his years as Jack Frost. A yelp was his reward, and he cheered as he and Manny shared a high five.

"So what should we do tomorrow?" said Manny once they ran out of balloons.

Jack shrugged. "I don't know. Try to take over the world?" He didn't know if Manny had caught the reference, but the snort followed by laughter was worth it all the same.

An image flashed through Jack's mind, and he turned toward Manny. "Didn't you used to like chocolate pops?"

Manny's eyes lit up at seeing Jack having remembered something like this. "Still do. Do you have any?"

"I might be able to scrounge up a few," said Jack as they wandered off towards Jack's private quarters. His past self never would have guessed he'd hang out with the former Man in the Moon as they discussed nostalgia. But his past self also hadn't remembered how much fun he used to have with this guy either. He still didn't remember it well, but the feeling was coming back. And it was a good feeling.

He could hardly believe it, but he seemed to have made his peace with MIM. By becoming him. And he found that he did not regret it. He looked forward to what new adventures he could get up to on the moon.

"Last one to my room has to eat a rotten egg!"

"Has to EAT a-wait, Jack... Jack, that's not how the rules work!"

But Jack was already running through the halls laughing at the top of his lungs. Manny ran behind him lest he be forced to eat a rotten egg. "If I get to the room before you do, I'm gonna record you eating that egg and send it to Bunny!"

Manny's eyes widened at the prospect of such embarrassment, and he picked up his pace. He and Jack raced neck and neck until they collapsed into a fit of giggles in the middle of the floor. They were in some random hallway. Manny then reached over and patted Jack on the head. "You may have changed, Jack, but in all the important ways, you haven't changed a bit."

"Uh huh," said Jack, "and you had better return the favor when you get reset. I just started to like you, darn it. I don't want to suddenly lose you."

Manny then offered Jack a threatening smirk as he said, "I can always make you like me a little less if it would help."

Jack's eyes narrowed as he regarded the man with suspicion. "...How?" Without another word, Manny bolted up and took off running for Jack's room again. It took several seconds for Jack to process this before he realized what Manny was doing. Jack bolted up and started chasing him down. "No, wait! _You_ were supposed to be the one to eat the rotten egg!"

"Bunny will love it a lot more if the video features you, don't you think?" said Manny.

"DON'T YOU DARE!"

Ah, old friends. Some things never changed.

 _ **And that's the end of arc two. I'll start arc three soon, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one in the meantime if you're willing to give them. :)**_

 _ **Now don't mind me. I've got to go off to my twitchy corner to do some more twitching in preparation for Inktober. ;) See you all next time, and thanks for reading!**_


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